Sharing & Publishing
Share links
Every published form gets a unique link you can share directly. Create multiple links per form — each with its own name, expiration, response limit, and analytics — so you can track which channel drives the most completions.
Share links
A share link is how respondents get to your form. Each link has its own 8-character code and its own settings, so you can create separate links for different campaigns, channels, or audiences.
Creating a share link
- 1
Publish your form
The first publish creates the form's share link, and the Share button appears in the top toolbar.
- 2
Open the Share panel
Click Share. The panel opens on the Public link tab. Pick a link from the dropdown, or click Create new link to add another.
- 3
Name the link
Under Link, give it a descriptive name like "Email campaign, May" or "LinkedIn ad". The name is for your reference only; respondents never see it. Links you leave unnamed show as "Link 1", "Link 2", and so on, by their position in the dropdown.
- 4
Set optional limits
Open Appearance for a default language and the share preview, Limits for an expiration date or a response cap, or Query parameters for default URL parameters. Skip all three for an open-ended link. Changes save as you type.
Two channels, one sheet
The Share panel has two tabs. Public link — this page — is one link anyone can open. Requests sends the form to one named recipient who submits once. See creating requests.
Link settings
Link name and Custom URL sit in the always-open Link section. The rest live in three collapsible sections below it: Appearance, Limits, and Query parameters.
| Setting | Section | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Link name | Link | An internal label to help you identify which channel or campaign this link is for. |
| Custom URL | Link | Pro or Business. Pick a verified custom domain, enter a slug, and click Save to replace the default formbase URL (e.g., forms.yoursite.com/feedback). Slugs are 3–64 characters of lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, can't start or end with a hyphen, and must be unused on that domain. Seven slugs are reserved: login, auth-callback, preview, payment, api, admin, and health. |
| Default language | Appearance | Respondents arriving via this link see the form in this language. They can still switch from the picker. |
| Share link preview | Appearance | Opens a per-form metadata sheet to customize the title, description, image, and favicon shown when the link is shared. See Social preview metadata below. |
| Set expiration date | Limits | The link stops accepting responses at the end of this day, in your local time. Visitors then see "Link expired". |
| Limit response slots | Limits | The maximum number of response slots this link hands out — at least 1. A slot is claimed when someone starts the form, not when they submit. Once all slots are claimed, new visitors see "Response limit reached". See response limits. |
| Query parameters | Query parameters | Set default values for utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, or any hidden field on the form, appended to the link automatically. See Query parameter defaults below. |
Query parameter defaults
The Query parameters section bakes default values into the link URL. formbase always shows the three UTM fields it reads
for analytics (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign), plus a row for every hidden field on the
form. Fill in a value, leave the rest empty, and formbase appends it to the copied link and the QR code automatically. Embed and popup
snippets don’t include these defaults, and a parameter named lang is ignored because the default language uses it.
This saves you from editing the URL by hand. Set utm_medium to “email” on your newsletter link once, and every copy carries it.
A hidden-field value set here also fills any visible field that uses that hidden field as its default value, so one link can pre-fill answers for a whole audience.
What gets saved where
Default parameters are added to the link URL, not to each response. The three UTM fields feed the Traffic Sources chart in Analytics. To save a value on every submission, add a hidden field with the same name (for example utm_source) — it then shows in both the submissions table and analytics.
Revoking a link
Click Revoke in the Share panel footer. Anyone who opens the link then sees “Link revoked”, and the link stops taking new responses. Its settings can’t be changed while it’s revoked. Changed your mind? Click Re-activate in the same footer. Revoking keeps the responses the link already collected, and it doesn’t affect the other links for the same form.
Moving a form to Trash revokes all of its links. Restoring the form leaves them revoked until you click Re-activate on each one.
Deleting a link
Delete a link from the ⋯ menu in the Share panel footer. If the link has no submitted responses yet (unfinished drafts don’t count), it’s removed for good.
If the link already has responses, formbase revokes it instead of deleting it. A prompt explains this before anything happens. Revoking keeps the existing data — your analytics and per-channel breakdown stay intact — but stops the link from taking new responses. This way you never lose responses or the channel they came from just by clearing out an old link.
Why multiple links?
Creating a separate link per channel lets you compare performance in the Analytics tab. Filter by share link to see views, submissions, and bounce rate for each channel independently. Common patterns:
- One link for email, another for social media, a third for your website embed
- A time-limited link for a promotion with a max response cap
- A link defaulted to French for your Quebec audience, another in English for the rest
UTM parameters for campaign tracking
Append UTM parameters to any share link URL to tag traffic for the Analytics tab’s Traffic Sources chart. formbase reads three standard parameters:
| Parameter | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| utm_source | Where the traffic comes from | facebook, newsletter, partner-blog |
| utm_medium | How it arrives — drives the category in Traffic Sources | social, email, cpc, referral |
| utm_campaign | Which campaign — visible in the drill-down | may-launch, black-friday, webinar-q2 |
https://forms.yoursite.com/feedback?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=product-launchSource and medium are matched case-insensitively; campaign names keep their case. Without UTM parameters, formbase falls back to the browser referrer to classify traffic — but some platforms strip referrers, so UTM parameters give you reliable attribution. See How traffic sources are classified for the full rules.
To skip editing the URL by hand, set these as defaults in the link’s Query parameters section.
QR codes
Every share link can generate a QR code. It encodes exactly the URL the Copy link button gives you, including any query parameter defaults and the language pin, so expiration, response limit, and analytics all apply the same way.
- 1
Open the Share panel
Open a form and click Share in the top toolbar.
- 2
Pick or create a share link
Each link has its own QR. Use a dedicated link per placement for analytics.
- 3
Click the QR Code card
A QR code appears for the selected link.
- 4
Download
Click Download PNG for a 512 × 512 px black-and-white image. The filename is built from the link name.
Print it on a sign, a slide, packaging, or a receipt. Create one share link per placement (for example qr-event-london,
qr-product-package) so the Analytics tab shows responses per placement.
Test before printing
Always scan the printed QR with the camera you expect respondents to use. Some printers crush dark areas — test at the intended print size before distributing.
Social preview metadata
When a share link is posted on social media or messaging apps, formbase generates an Open Graph preview with the form title and description. You can customize the preview title, description, image, and favicon per form under Appearance → Share link preview in the Share panel.
If you use a custom domain, you can also set domain-level defaults that apply to all forms on that domain. A “Hide from search engines” toggle adds a noindex tag, at the domain level or per form (the form setting wins). On the default formbase.so domain, search engine indexing is always disabled, so the toggle only takes effect on custom domains.
Test your link before distributing
Open the share link in an incognito window to experience exactly what respondents will see — including authentication gates, password prompts, and the default language setting.